New £2.5m mushroom facility in Augher and major new housing development get go-ahead

Published:07:56Sunday 17 April 2016

A new mushroom production facility in Augher and the construction of over 130 new homes in the Dungannon area have been given the go-ahead by Mid Ulster District Council’s Planning Committee.

The new mushroom production facility represents a £2.5M investment in the County Tyrone village and will result in the creation of up to 50 new jobs.

The 130 new homes were approved for sites on the Old Eglish Road and the Killyneill Road providing a very welcome boost to the local constriction industry.

Speaking after the Committee’s April meeting, Chair of the Planning Committee, Councillor Martin Kearney, highlighted the benefits.

“These latest decisions will benefit not only the Dungannon area but the whole district in terms of economic growth and the creation of additional jobs both directly and indirectly. The decisions emphasise the fact that planning at a local level can create larger scale outcomes that will benefit the entire Mid Ulster area and help to create a sustainable economy.”

The housing development is one of the largest to break ground in Dungannon town since the collapse of the housing market.

It is hoped that the housing development will kickstart the local construction industry and ease the district’s housing shortage.

Dungannon town is currently undergoing a severe housing shortage due to its rapidly increasing population.

Meanwhile, house prices in Northern Ireland continued to rise last month according the latest RICS and Ulster Bank Residential Market Survey.

Government figures have shown that developers and landowners are sitting on 419 hectares of brownfield sites in the town, enough to build 7,254 homes.

There has been a dramatic decline in new houses built in the Dungannon District after the crash of the property market and the introduction of planning regulation PPS 14, which effectively banned new homes in rural areas.

The figures show that during the house building boom, a total of 3650 new homes were built in Dungannon town, using up 200 acres of brownfield sites, which is approximately half of the ground still available.